Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[bkp_duke]

Yes I saw that slide.....what I'm saying is that reading through the other numbers, the business itself is not operating as efficiently as I would have expected and the economies of scale didn't materialize like I would have hoped for, given the ramp in production volume from Berlin and Austin as well as Lathrop.

I don't have that read. I'm reading a ton of "reinvestment" back into the business with increased CAPX (Megafactory x 2, GF x 2 ramping, GF x 1 about to start). And then there is 800M in Forex charges, which really hits home.

 

[Mardak]

Estimating these FSD Beta miles numbers from the 2023Q1 report:

The monthly rate of ~16M miles is significantly higher in March even though FSD Beta 11.x with highway driving was only really released to the fleet in the last couple weeks. It'll be interesting to see next quarter's numbers with full months of regular highway driving mix (EPA estimates 55% city 45% highway) as there'll be more people using FSD Beta even just on highways. Like Tesla wrote:

Our growing fleet of FSD Beta users has an exponential impact on total FSD Beta miles driven – with over 150 million miles to date and counting. This level of data collection is unprecedented in the industry. Mass collection of diverse datasets is essential for AI-based approach – the only approach we believe can work for scalable autonomy. In Q1, we enabled the latest FSD Beta software stack for highway driving.​

​

The preview of 150M+ miles through today should mean the mileage rate is closer to 30M/mo matching up with the previous ~1M miles/day:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1643144343254110209

 

[Mengy]

You and I must be reading different earnings lol.

Reading through the numbers, I'm struggling to see how Tesla is not achieving better efficiencies. Just a bleh earnings report. (I didn't think Q4's earnings were that great either )

The price cuts coupled with ramping two new factories while also tooling up the CT line had to ultimately hit the margins and efficiencies. There just wasn't any getting around that. With this in mind, I think the report is more positive than I was expecting.

And lets all remember, we are in bad economic times too. The important takeaway is the business is healthy.

 

[Xepa777]

Operating margins down.

ASPs must have been near $46k to get the sub 20 billion automotive revenue number.

So much for the claims that costs were going down so much and ASPs actually wouldn't drop much.

The level of cope and hopium here was hilarious, driven by greedy narratives rather than objective analysis. When Rob has a forecast lower than Wall Street you know it’s about to get real lol.

But hey certainly feels good to read those “this is actually good for Tesla!” Posts and give it 50+ likes!

Gonna keep saying it, trying to project Tesla longterm with very specific financial variables is so, so stupid. There’s so much variability, both internally and externally in macro. And the posters here (and Twitter, looking at you James Stephenson) who have been leading that charge have been almost criminally wrong, knowing that people are (contrary to what they say) making financial decisions off their arrogant forecasts. Shout out to those who said Tesla semi at 60% margin and 50k volume! Lol.

Now, when you take a step back and look at the engineering, the vertical integration, the actual product, you see the multi-trillion dollar potential. That’s clear.

Terrible quarter, rough year, same fantastic outlook. Now keep calm and carry the hell along.

 

[betstarship]

If I'm reading the report right, they half'd their debt y-o-y.

 

[30seconds]

Sigh

 

[Hiline]

Terrible quarter, rough year, same fantastic outlook. Now keep calm and carry the hell along.

And take advantage of the buying opportunity!

 

[DarkandStormy]

Cap expenditures were high (probably due to the factories being built and ramping), that coupled with the price cuts likely hurt FCF quite a lot.

Still the report is mostly good, not as bad as I was expecting honestly. Everything here should improve as the year goes on. The market probably won't like this at all though, that hit to Op Margin will be a media talking point tomorrow.

FCF is -$100m if you back out reg credits.

 

[Knightshade]

If I'm reading the report right, they half'd their debt y-o-y.

Yes- from 88 million to 44 million.

Which is... pretty much nothing either way on a company doing almost 24 billion in revenue for the quarter.

 

[StarFoxisDown!]

The price cuts coupled with ramping two new factories while also tooling up the CT line had to ultimately hit the margins. There just wasn't any getting around that. With this in mind, I think the report is more positive than I was expecting.

The margin hit from ramping 2 new factories should have started fading with this quarter in a material way. The hardest hit on margins was in Q2 and Q3 from both Berlin and Austin since they both were just starting their production ramp.

I don't have that read. I'm reading a ton of "reinvestment" back into the business with increased CAPX (Megafactory x 2, GF x 2 ramping, GF x 1 about to start). And then there is 800M in Forex charges, which really hits home.

What I'm talking about has nothing to do with their reinvestment. I have no issues with their FCF as I want cash to go back into investments. I'm talking about the operations of the business. Look my critiques of Tesla's current quarter has nothing to do with my view of the company long term. Tesla has just been sloppy the past two quarters. Simple as that to me.

We're seeing signs of Tesla maybe optimizing their efficiency this quarter already. Hopefully that means the efficiencies and the benefits that come with them will finally be realized in Q2's earnings. Because they sure as hell haven't been realized in this earnings.

 

[betstarship]

They dragged down ASP by $5k...that would have added another $2.2B in profits for the quarter.

 

[juanmedina]

We need more of this:

 

[bkp_duke]

Rob estimating auto ASP of $47,134 and auto COGS 38,505.

Both are substantial drops from Q4.

 

[betstarship]

Yes- from 88 million to 44 million.

Which is... pretty much nothing either way on a company doing almost 24 billion in revenue for the quarter.

Actually, I'm looking at the top line for vehicle and energy product financing (highlighted).

 

[bkp_duke]

The margin hit from ramping 2 new factories should have started fading with this quarter in a material way. The hardest hit on margins was in Q2 and Q3 from both Berlin and Austin since they both were just starting their production ramp.

From Berlin, yes. It's an all Model Y facility.

Austin, I don't agree. I expect it will be a "cash furnace" this year for 2 reasons:
1) 4680 ramp is clearly going to be a long one
2) the CT ramp hasn't even started, they are still in pilot line stages

Both of those are a lot of $$$


And if you watch the fly-overs in Austin, the Cathode plant is not close to being operational yet, and there are other things like the Megapack deploy that hasn't started. Lots of $$$ being burned there still compared to Berlin.

 

[Singuy]

Cost has declined substantially since Berlin/Texas hitting COGS.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1648788520046063624

 

[brantse]

Proceeds from maturities of investments jumped from $19M to $1.6B

 

[unk45]

Automotive News

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[StarFoxisDown!]

From Berlin, yes. It's an all Model Y facility.

Austin, I don't agree. I expect it will be a "cash furnace" this year for 2 reasons:
1) 4680 ramp is clearly going to be a long one
2) the CT ramp hasn't even started, they are still in pilot line stages

Both of those are a lot of $$$


And if you watch the fly-overs in Austin, the Cathode plant is not close to being operational yet, and there are other things like the Megapack deploy that hasn't started. Lots of $$$ being burned there still compared to Berlin.

Again you're talking about CAPEX, I'm talking about operating efficiency and benefiting from achieving mass production volume. They're two separate things. CAPEX doesn't effect earnings, just FCF. I have no issue with Tesla pouring it's cash back into the CAPEX for Austin and other factories.

 

[unk45]

Tesla’s profit margin slips after it cuts prices to boost demand

Shares of Elon Musk’s electric-car maker fall in after-hours trading

on.ft.com